Pulpit Rider steps up on short rest in John C. Mabee Stakes
Although it is a Grade 2 with a $150,000 purse, the John C. Mabee Stakes on Saturday at Del Mar is basically a glorified allowance.
More than half the Mabee field is eligible to the second allowance condition, and none has won a graded stakes for older. Not a knock, merely truth.
Eight entered the nine-furlong turf race, including California-bred stakes winner Pulpit Rider, sharp stablemates Raymundos Secret and Zee Drop, and Lady Prancealot, a graded winner last year against 3-year-olds.
The sharpest turf filly running Saturday will be cooled out by the time the Mabee is run. Tonahutu, a Grade 2 runner-up last month, looks tough in race 2, a second-level allowance at one mile. The Mabee is race 10. First post through closing-day Monday moves to 1 p.m.
Pulpit Rider won the Solana Beach Stakes for statebred fillies and mares last month and was not expected to squeeze a third start into summer. Trainer Mike Puype and owner-breeders Larry and Marianne Williams reconsidered when the Mabee came up light and the end of the meet began closing in.
“She loves it here” at Del Mar, Puype said. “She runs good races over this course every time. She’s coming off a career-best race, so coming back in 21 days is a little bit of a concern, but she’s so much better at Del Mar than she is at Santa Anita. It’s worth taking a shot in a graded stake like this.”
With six wins from 24 starts, and earnings of $462,677, Pulpit Rider is the top female sired by the late Lucky Pulpit, whose all-time leading progeny is 2014 Kentucky Derby winner California Chrome.
The Mabee would be the first graded stakes victory for Pulpit Rider, and her first win beyond a mile. She faces a formidable rival in potential pacesetter Raymundos Secret.
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Raymundos Secret returned from an extended layoff last month to win a second-level allowance from off the pace. The Mabee would be a good spot to use her speed. She could shake loose, but can she stay 1 1/8 miles?
“That’s definitely the question mark in her form,” trainer Phil D’Amato acknowledged. “But the way she relaxed in her last race, and finished, I just don’t think an extra eighth is an issue.”
D’Amato also starts Zee Drop, whose last-out fourth to Raymundos Secret was better than it looks on paper.
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“She was caught wide from the half-mile home, and she just kept finding,” D’Amato said. “Out of that race, she really came on in her training, so we thought it would be worth giving it a shot here. She just seems to be peaking right now.”
The others in the Mabee are Catch the Eye, Don’t Blame Judy, Meal Ticket, and Quick.